Janathon #11

The excitement within me this morning spilled over........for it was SNOWING!! and for a time they were BIG snow flakes coming down thick and fast.

Today is also the start day for the Spine race which follows the length of the Pennine Way, so it literally passes my house within a few kilometers. Now on any other weekend I would run from home to spectate for a while, watching the runners of that race go past somewhere around the Snake Pass road crossing, or maybe Bleaklow Head. But, tomorrow is the Trigger race - Marsden to Edale - and there are loads of Glossopdale Harriers in that race, and it passes the same place close to home. So, I am following my Spectators Plan A tomorrow, and chose Plan B today. Well that was the idea...Plan B being to drive to the snake summit, have a short run along the Pennine Way and cheer on the front runners of the Spine.

However, that beautiful snow put that idea right out of the window....the Snake Pass at the summit was lethal...yes, I did drive up there and the road up was fairly clear until right at the summit where it turned into a car park on ice. I did a swift-as-you-can-on-ice-numerous-point-turn and drove straight back home. There looked to be a good couple of inches of snow up there, good to run on, but not safe to leave a car.

Plan B for my run then, enlisting Rachel, and running from Hadfield along the Longdendale Trail to the road crossing for the Spine race as they drop off Bleaklow via Torside Clough. We just got there in time to see the first runner leaving - he'd already been stopped for a short while refueling. We headed a short way up towards Torside Clough seeing a few more runners coming through, and then a few more back at the road crossing before making our way back to Hadfield on the trail. All totalled up to an easy 10km run with a few pauses, just about an hour of running.

first place guy leaving bottom of Torside...is this Marcus Scotney? didn't manage to see his number!

looking up to Bleaklow

top ten runner heading down the last bit of a very soggy path down Torside Clough

early placed runners dropping down to cross over Torside dam wall, a little respite before climbing up Black Hill